The present invention relates to improvements in zither-like instruments and new systems for playing and listening to such instruments. More particularly, the improved instruments produce a mellow guitar-like sound, and in one embodiment include a contact earpiece for direct contact listening to the instrument.
There have been several prior attempts to produce zithers which produce a more mellow, guitar-like sound. To do this the following criteria typically must be satisfied: (1) thin sound board; (2) bridge out over the sound board; (3) deep body; (4) elongated body; and (5) large sound box volume. The instrument must also be structurally sound and light in weight. No zither previously known has accomplished all of these things.
Various prior attempts to create such instruments are illustrated in Page U.S. Pat. No. 2,473,422; Rohrbough U.S. Pat. No. 3,515,026; Large U.S. Pat. No. 1,799,172; Peterson U.S. Pat. No. 3,237,503; as well as by the Autoharp instrument.
Rohrbough, utilizing a steel frame, provides a thin sound board, not an attempt to increase sound box depth, and is limited by choosing to provide four octaves of string range requiring very short treble strings and therefore the traditional triangular autoharp shape. Rohrbough also incorporates a relatively massive head block and a smaller but also relatively massive foot block. The result is an instrument with a low sound box volume to mass ratio similar to all the other prior instruments cited herein. A comparison of these various designs with a typical guitar, demonstrates that only the present invention can produce a lightweight instrument with large sound box volume and depth, and accommodate one bridge placed out over the unsupported portion of a thin sound board. Although Rohrbough is able to provide a thin sound board, the bridge cannot be placed out over the sound board, simply because a thin sound board could not support the downward stress imposed by 30 to 40 tensioned strings.
Large incorporates a bridge which optionally can be inserted over the non-supported portion of the sound board. Even though significantly fewer strings are provided in this and the Peterson design, a thick sound board is required because in such a shallow body design, the sides and backboard alone will not maintain the top of the instrument in a planar surface. Only the addition of a thick sound board would prevent the bending and twisting of the entire instrument. Had the depth of these instruments been significantly increased, the sides would have resisted this bending action and a thin sound board could have been provided. However, because both instruments utilize a conventional design involving massive tuning pin and hitch pin blocks, with the pins facing upward, any significant increase in the depth of the instrument results in a substantially increased block depth and in a very heavy instrument not suitable for play in a guitar-like mode. The Page design is similar to conventional autoharps except that the sound box depth, and therefore volume, are greatly increased. But the weight of the instrument is greatly increased, for the same reasons cited previously, and the sound box volume to weight ratio stays low.